PONDA: Concerned over the rising road accidents in Ponda taluka, especially on the National Highway, local residents have blamed the craze for overspeeding amongst youth as a major reason for the mishaps.
“Most of the NH road is narrow and sign boards put up on the highway clearly show speed limit of 60 km/hr. But often the drivers ignore this and tend to overspeed. They eventually lose control over their vehicles and lives are lost in accidents,” the locals said.
According to them, the best way to prevent accidents and loss of innocent lives is to create road safety awareness amongst parents and teachers. Also awareness programmes should be held at panchayat-level.
Many times a sole breadwinner in the family loses his life in an accident leading to suffering of other family members dependent on him. Once the youths get driving license, they forget rules and often violate them. The year 2023 saw 27 fatal accidents in Ponda.
Sandeep Parkar from Khandepar says a chapter on road safety especially overpseeding and traffic rules should be taught in high schools. Due to lack of proper knowledge, there are traffic violations which causes accidents. Self control is best solution to prevent accidents. He said there is need to ban use of alcohol, drugs in driving.
Social worker Viraj Sapre, said bad roads, faulty engineering, driving under influence of alcohol etc are reasons for accidents but he said the youths are unaware of consequences of over speeding or rash driving. So there is need to create awareness from home. Many times, parents buy cars and bikes for youths but there is no awareness on road safety.
Vishal Fadte said parents before giving bikes and cars to youths should tell them that vehicles are given for comfortable journey but that does not mean they should drive in rash manner putting lives at risk.
Ponda Traffic PI Krishna Sinari said twice in week their officials go to schools and create awareness on road safety among students. He said speed thrills but kills should be keep in mind. The police officer said if youths follow rules and avoid over speeding and rash driving, the journey on road could be safe. “We have identified five black spots and eight accident prone zones on NH passing from Ponda and are informing the PWD to improve the roads. Our traffic team had two speed radars to check speeding vehicles,” Sinari said.
